1995-10-01a- CIA Conference Report: THE CHALLENGE OF ETHNIC CONFLICT TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER IN THE 1990S GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES 01-Oct-95

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replacement level soon. This is encouraging, because There are four core-applied questions that come to
Indonesia is the world's most populous Islamic nation. mind:
It is not a highly industrialized state, but the govern-
ment keeps pushing the idea publicly that small fami- - Under what circumstances do ethnic groups become
lies are happy families. I think that is worth politicized in the first place?
considering in many parts of the world that are grow-
ing rapidly. - Under what circumstances do politicized groups
come into conflict?
General Discussion - What circumstances aggravate or ameliorate con-
flict?
DR. WIXMAN: In light of a comment made by Pro-
fessor Mikesell, I agree that, in terms of conflict reso- - What are the implications of conflict for national/
lution, the example of Finland is superb. Why did the international order?
Finns give such rights to the Swedes? Because they
had been under Russian rule. A little earlier in history, Those are, it seems to me, the strongest set of applied
when Rissia took Finland from Sweden, it was anti- questions we should deal with. If there is a message
Swedishism that became the symbolism in pro-Russi- related to those questions, each one of which could be
anism. addressed at some length, it seems to me, it is that we
are not living in a simple world. I will avoid the ugly
What we need to look at in terms of conflict resolution term complexification, but it seems to me that what
is how reconciliation can take place. The reason continues to come across is that context matters, and
Armenians still hate Turks is that there has never been context is a complicated array of things that come
reconciliation. Similarly there will be no ability for together.
Bosnian Croats, Serbs, and Muslims to live together
until reconciliation occurs. If there is a value to geography, it is not that it studies
a particular thing but that it tries to look at how things
DR. MIKESELL: Another example of a government come together and interact with core concepts like ter-
maintaining a keen awareness of minority-group ritory, location, and environment. The key advantage
needs would be that of-the Netherlands. About 10 per- of a geographical perspective is its ability to try to
cent of the country's population is Frisian, but only think about the relationships among and between phe-
10 percent of the Frisians vote for the Frisian National nomena in places. This is where political science and
Party. There is a Frisian academy; there are chairs in geography really come together. Politics and power
the language in Dutch universities. It is almost as are expressed territorially, and looking at the relation-
though the government has said to the Frisians, "You ships among and between the territorial units and the
are recognized. We would be pleased if you would expression of powers is critical to understanding the
engage in activities to promote your identity. We'll circumstances that lead to each of those four applied
even subsidize it." questions that I noted.
Also, Switzerland recognized its Romansche-speakers DR. DE BLU: The examples that Dr. Mikesell men-
before they clamored for recognition. This is partly tioned of countries that were gracious to their minori-
because Mussolini considered Romansche to be an ties were also countries that were relatively well off at
Italian dialect, and that frightened the Swiss. But we the time they made those concessions.
have so few other examples of that happening. I
would say that treating a 10-percent minority as When Germany was thriving, the Turkish minority
though it were a 49-percent minority works, but it was welcome. When Germany had an economic
requires extraordinary sophistication on behalf of the recession, the Turkish minority became disliked.
majority side.
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